Dániel Péter Biró

Dániel Péter Biró is Assistant Professor of Composition and Music Theory at the University of Victoria. Dr. Biró completed his Ph.D. in composition at Princeton University in 2004. He was a Fulbright scholar in Germany. He conducted research of Hungarian folk music at the Academy of Science in Budapest and of Jewish music in Israel. Awarded the Hungarian Government's Kodály Award for Hungarian composers, his compositions have been performed at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria, at the Bartók Festival in Szombathely, Hungary, at the Klangbiennale in Frankfurt, Germany, at the LITSK Festival for Computer Music in Princeton, U.S.A., and have been broadcast on Swiss, Austrian, German, and Italian State radio. He has been commissioned from the Interart Festival Center, Hungary from the Schlachthaus Theater, Switzerland and from the Stuttgart Opera, Germany and by the City of Darmstadt. In 2005 he was a fellow at the Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory. In 2006 he was a featured composer and lecturer at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music where Mishpatim (Laws) Part II, commissioned by the city of Darmstadt, was performed by the ensemble recherche. In the same year Dániel Péter Biró was a faculty fellow at the University of Victoria Centre for Studies in Religion and Society: there he researched early Jewish and Christian chant traditions. In May 2007 his electroacoustic composition Simanim (Signs, Traces), commissioned by the German Radio (HR) and done in cooperation with the Experimental Studio of the SWR, was premiered by members of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2008 he was a featured composer and lecturer at the International Messiaen Week in Neustadt, Germany where he lectured on relationships between religious chant and new music. In 2009 he was commissioned by the Quasar Saxophone Quartet, assisted through a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, for the work Udvarim Achadim (And the Same Words), which was featured on their Canadian Tour. In May 2010 he was a featured composer at the Mehrklang Festival in Freiburg, Germany where his composition Ko Amar (Thus Said) was premiered by Noa Frenkel, the Ensemble Surplus and the Experimentalstudio. In 2010 he was awarded grants from the Siemens Arts Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts to complete the composition cycle Mishpatim (Laws) for the Ensemble SurPlus.